Daily Market News Update — 12th-13th May 2026

Midnight News Update: 12-13 May 2026

In a significant move to curb the ballooning trade deficit, the government has hiked basic customs duty on gold and silver to 10% plus 5% Agricultural Infrastructure Development Cess. It effectively takes the import tax up from 6% to 15%. This hike will be effective immediately. The idea is to curb overseas purchase of precious metals and reduce the pressure on the trade deficit and also on the INR. Even gold imported from UAE under the CEPA will now attract duties. Just two days back, PM Modi had appealed to Indians to cut gold buying, fuel usage, and foreign travel.

India retail inflation (CPI) climbed to a 4-month high of 3.48% for April 2026. The street was expecting inflation closer to 3.9%. The spike in inflation was largely driven by food inflation, which spiked to 4.2%; with a spike in rural and urban food inflation. While the impact on petchem imports were managed through wider sourcing and domestic output, oil remains a question mark. India has kept oil inflation artificially low by keeping market prices of petrol and diesel static, despite a 50% spike in crude prices. CPI inflation is expected to harden to 4.1% in May 2026.

In an interesting move, China and the US have agreed to oppose any collection of tolls at Hormuz Straits by Iran. The Straits of Hormuz are virtually closed, despite being one of the arteries of oil and gas supply to Asia. The Straits of Hormuz transports bulk of the Chinese oil and gas buying, and hence China has a direct interest in its quick reopening. While Iran cannot officially block the Straits of Hormuz, it has spiked the risks of passing through, leading to a virtual shutdown. It is not still clear if China and Russia would support a UN resolution demanding Iran give up the Strait.

In the year 2025, India’s renewable energy (RE) deal value surged to $2 billion. The focus is now shifting largely to storage and grids. There was also an accent on round-the-clock clean power solutions. With the move towards 500 GW of RE capacity coming up, the focus has to shift to much deeper integration of generation, storage, and transmission. Some of the sub-segments of RE that have seen major deals in recent months include; battery storage, hybrid RE projects, pumped hydro, offshore wind, etc. India recorded fastest RE capacity growth in year 2025.

Even as India inflation picked up slowly, the spike in US consumer inflation was much sharper at 3.8%. Now, the US inflation is a good 180 bps above the Fed target rate of 2.0%. MOM inflation also spiked to 0.6%. Core inflation was relatively subdued at 2.8%, so most of the pressure has come from food and fuels. Gas prices have risen by 5% in April, after a steep 21% spike in March. Most economists are of the view that even if the current stalemate in the Gulf ends, it may be quite some time before supply chains are restored and fuel inflation normalizes globally.

Garden Reach Shipbuilders (GRSE) expects some big Navy and Coast Guard orders in the coming months. Apart from the much talked about Corvette order, GRSE expects additional orders of nearly ₹1,50,000 crore. These orders include frigates, interceptor craft, anti-mine vessels, and landing platform docks. The company is expecting RFPs in the next few months. One of the biggest such orders could be the ₹70,000 crore order for 7 ships under the P-17 Bravo Program. In addition, anti-mine project could be worth ₹32,000 crore and landing platform dock ₹35,000 crore.

For the just concluded financial year 2025-26, public sector banks reported record combined net profits of ₹1.98 trillion. This surge came on the back of improved asset quality, and strong credit growth. Aggregate operating profits of all PSU banks put together touched a record ₹3.21 trillion in FY26. The aggregate total business (deposits plus loans) for FY26 increased 12.8% to ₹283.3 trillion, with aggregate deposits of banks rising by 10.6% to ₹156.3 trillion. The deposit growth of PSBs continues to lag credit growth, but not as much as in the case of private banks.

There are more details coming in on the Reliance Jio IPO, which is expected to be in the range of $4 billion or approximately ₹38,000 crore. Clearly, it will be the largest IPO in Indian stock market history by a margin. Talks had been kept on hold for some time due to weak IPO market conditions. Reliance Jio currently has over 50 crore subscribers and represents the biggest retail telecom franchise in India. In the last 10 years since its launch, Jio has overtaken Bharti Airtel to emerge as the biggest player with a big push to making telecom and broadband affordable to Indians.